High Speed Rail: Why are republicans against everything cool?

[Joe the Revelator]

Seriously. I did some reading on high speed rail today and found out that after killing HSr in Ohio and florida, republicans are now trying to kill HSR in California.



What do they get out of making everything suck?

[Motown_Johnny]

1. they are far to energy efficient

can't have that ya know

[FarCenter]

21. High speed rail has essentially the same energy efficiency as airplanes

Although, they do run on electricity instead of jet fuel. The environmental impact depends on what is used to generate the electricity.

[Motown_Johnny]

22. Where do you get those numbers from?

I am pretty sure they are wrong.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail

Comparison with other modes of transport


High speed rail is often viewed as an isolated system and simply as advantageous or disadvantageous as compared to other transport systems, but all transport systems must work together to maximize benefits. A good HSR system has capacity for non-stop and local services and has good connectivity with other transport systems. HSR, like any transport system, is not inherently convenient, fast, clean, nor comfortable. All of this depends on design, implementation, maintenance, operation and funding. Operational smoothness is often more indicative of organizational discipline than technological prowess.
Due to current infrastructure designs in many nations, there are constraints on the growth of the highway and air travel systems. Some key factors promoting HSR are that airports and highways have no room to expand, and are often overloaded. High-speed rail has the potential for high capacity on its fixed corridors (double decked E4 Series Shinkansen can carry 1,634 seated passengers, double that of an Airbus A380 in all economy class, and even more if standing passengers are allowed), and has the potential to relieve congestion on the other systems. Well-established high speed rail systems in use today are more environmentally friendly than air or road travel. This is due to:

displaced usage from more environmentally damaging modes of transport.
lower energy consumption per passenger kilometer
reduced land usage for a given capacity compared to motorways




Trains have always been a more efficient way to move things. I just take that as a given.

[FarCenter]

26. It depends heavily on the load factor

First, high-speed rail has high energy costs for the manufacture and installation of the roadbeds, bridges, rails, overhead catenary, power distribution, terminals, etc. Creating a LA to San Francisco high speed railroad dedicated to passenger use involves making and moving a very large amount of stuff. Most of the infrastructure must be dedicated to passenger use due to the differences in roadbed design between high speed rail and freight operation. OTOH, passenger rail at up to 90 mph can share roadbeds with freight and is much more economical.

Second, operating at 180 mph or so causes fairly high frictional, aerodynamic and other losses in efficiency, so the efficiency in ton-miles/gallon (or per megajoule if you prefer) is poorer than it is for freight or conventional passenger operation. Trainsets are also heavily built for safety reasons, so the ratio of vehicle weight per seat is high, especially compared with the aluminum or composite construction of modern airliners.

Third, the efficiency in terms of passenger-miles/gallon is heavily dependent on whether the seats can be kept full for all segments of the route for all scheduled runs. The airlines are pretty successfull in keeping load factors at 80% or above. It is very unlikely that the trains running in the central valley of CA will be anywhere near as full, especially before high-speed links into San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego are built. There will be years of running rather empty trains on frequent schedules before traffic can be built. In fact, traffic may never be built if passengers are charged prices that will pay off the $100 billion investment.

There was a report from Berkeley that analysed the energy efficiency in detail.
http://its.berkeley.edu/btl/2010/spring/HRS-life-cycle

[madokie]

2. The repukes are trying their best to drown the government in a bathtub like norquist said they were

They are 100% in the corporate pocket

[Joe the Revelator]

6. But why HSR? There is money to be made out there...what kind of shitty world do they view as their..

..ideal USA?

[madokie]

16. I truly think they want us to go back to the horse and buggy days

[LeftofObama]

3. I never understood that myself.

HSR is a great idea whose time has come.

[Warpy]

4. They are against any change, period

While most of us here at DU bemoan those times we get stuck in some kind of rut, the Republican mind depends on it.

Even if the high speed rail is a thousand miles away, even if electric cars are a minority of vehicles on the road, even a slight reminder that change is inevitable and the rest of us would prefer progress rather than simply sinking into senescence without a fight is extremely painful to them.

This is why conservatives need to be steamrolled. They will never accede to the inevitability of progress, they will fight it at every step. We need to shove them out of the way or we will never accomplish anything, either as a country or as the human race.

[Generic Brad]

19. They fear change

The fear they carry has prevented them from developing intellectual maturity. They act like scared children and fight change at every opportunity. That is why we adults can never have anything nice.

[liberal N proud]

5. Two reasons...

Big oil money.
It is being done as a "public" project.

The oil companies want to keep us behind the wheel and the other reason is self explanatory considering the Republican's and their less government agenda.

[JHB]

7. Ye gods, man, haven't you read 'Atlas Shrugged'? Railroads are 'collectivist'...

Real Americans love the freedom of the open road. Only some commie/socialist parasite would run a railroad....

Oh, wait...

[Snake Alchemist]

8. I loved it in Japan, but it was not cheap by any means.

Unfortunately, the things I loved it for would probably be unavailable/ruined in the US. Super easy access, little to no security, cute girls with food carts coming down the aisles, etc.

[WingDinger]

9. Busses are for the socially and mentally inept, bullet trains are just fast busses. They would not b

be caught dead on one.

[librechik]

10. riches as a revolving door politician

[southernyankeebelle]

11. One word OBAMA they don't want to get him any credit.

[Zalatix]

12. Because high-speed rail is unprofitable.

You know, unlike the airline industry.

[toddwv]

13. Because liberal/progressive public projects never work out.

You know like the railroad, the highway system, telephone backbone, internet etc.

[DirkGently]

14. Not enough private sector money to be made.

And the oil and auto and tire and asphalt companies don't like the idea of reduced traffic or car usage. Rick Scott sauntering in and dismantling Florida's HSR project, despite evidence it would create jobs, and after the debunking of his "concerns" it would end up costing taxpayers, was one of the most blatant examples of screwing constituents to serve business interests I've ever witnessed.

And it wasn't even local businesses he was working for. They all wanted it. Apparently either he was doing favors for bigger corporations, or is just so slavishly devoted to denying that the federal government can ever confer a benefit that it didn't matter.

Which is another big part of it. Republicans and conservatives have gotten to the point where they simply want to prevent government from serving the public at large, period. If it doesn't line the pocket of a business interest, which will in turn generate campaign cash, they want it dead. Damn the cost to the actual people they supposedly represent, damn infrastructure, damn national pride, all of it.

Killing high speed rail is a clear example of how our democracy is grinding to a halt, literally.

[Throd]

15. I'm in California. I'm against our HSR program.

We don't have 100 billion dollars to do this. 100 billion dollars can be better spent elsewhere.

We will spend about 10 billion dollars building a few miles of track near Bakersfield and then abandon the whole damn thing.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

17. It started back in the 60s and 70s.

The oil companies bought up the public transit systems in several states and shut them down. This included a trolley right here in Oklahoma and part of the subway in LA.

[CBHagman]

23. I thought that predated the '60s and the '70s.

I'll have to find the reference, but I thought it was much earlier than that that the rubber and automobile companies bought up the streetcar lines to be torn out and replaced by buses.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

24. Might have been.

My frame of reference was here in OK where we had a trolley that went between El Reno and OKC. That shut down in the 60s.

[Initech]

18. Because our oil-loving masters won't benefit from it.

[Iris]

20. Because "cool" is for Communists!

[malaise]

25. ReTHUGs are against anything vaguely connected to

to science or progress